I received a message from a woman who got her septum pierced and she was not happy with the placement:

My question is quite similar to another that I saw on your blog who also got a wrongly placed septum.

I went to a known and recommended piercer on Wednesday, but she placed the septum incorrectly.The piercing has been placed in the thick cartilage above the 'sweet spot'.

So it's very high up my nose and not aesthetically pleasing.

My question now is: do I immediately take out the piercing? Can that damage the cartilage (I read somewhere that it can splinter if you take it out)?

It still hurts. Also cause the piercer readjusted the needle after poking it. Which means I have a small second wound under the piercing.

I'd love to get it repierced in the right place, I can find my 'sweet spot' very easily, so I'm sure there's enough room. How long should I wait to get it redone?

I'm really disappointed about this experience. I hope you can give me some advice, 'cause I'm a bit lost now.

Thank you!

My reply:

Sorry to hear about your piercing. If you're not happy with the placement (and I understand why you're not), then you should take out the jewelry ASAP. Don't worry about "splintering the cartilage"--that sounds like an urban myth to me.

So, here it is, the botched genital piercing of the day by Mystic Piercing In Crofton, Maryland. The unlucky woman who received it wrote to me:

Hey I see it's probably a centimeter too high from the hood apex (that is if I understood the location properly) I'm just wondering if it looks ok... And safely done. It's 2 day old so It is still a hoop rather than the bars I've seen on your site. Thank you very much for letting me know, of course my best friend and my fiancé Dont know how it is supposed to be, I hope to hear from you soon! Thanks,

My reply:

No, sorry, you have a hood surface piercing, not a VCH piercing. What you're referring to as the "apex" is actually the edge of your hood. The apex is up underneath your hood, at the deepest natrual part of the little "one-ended tunnel."

I received a message from a woman I pierced and she wanted to know if it was normal that her jewelry often leaned to one side of her hood or the other. She sent photos. My comments are below.

This piercing looks great and these photos do a perfect job of illustrating a common phenomenon: the propensity for VCH jewelry to rest to one side or the other (depending on build and tissue tightness or thickness). Many hoods have very fine (thin) skin and are very pliable or malleable.

She described the tendency for the jewelry to rest over to her left, as in the second image. In this particular case, I noted her asymmetry, which likely contributes to this issue. In the image with the jewelry centered, I can see that the left side of her hood has a kind of "ridge" or "hill," where the right side has a sort of a "valley." It would make sense that the side with more tissue could be heavier, resulting in the tendency for the jewelry to favor that side.

I got a message from a woman who got a VCH piercing that was terribly botched. The piercing was wayyy too deep and the jewelry far too short; it became embedded under her hood. She suffered horribly in agony and nearly had to undergo surgery to remove the jewelry.

Image below is of the botched piercing. The "inverted-V" of the hood is marked. That is where the bottom ball of the curved barbell should be visible. The arrow points to the approimate location of where the piercing should have actually been made. You can see that it is about twice as "deep" (far away from the edge of the hood) as it should have been. And the jewelry was far, far too short. The piercing was done by Brandi Colquitt at Innercity Ink in Tulsa‎, OK‎.

She wrote:I went 4 days ago and had a vertical hood piercing done. I was so excited, I had been wanting it done for some time. A woman I had been to for other piercings is who I decided to stick with for this one.

The pain was intense. I could barely stand it. From the beginning, you couldn't see the bottom ball under the hood. Three days later, the swelling and pain was so bad I could barely sit. I called the piercer and went in to have her check it.

I have a well healed vch that is over five years old at this point. I've known from the start that it's a bit on the shallow side, but not extreme shallow. I have a relatively deep hood which can completely cover a q-tip, and the exit point of the vch is maybe 1/8" off from the apex. It looks fine from the front and feels fine, the bottom ball does rest squarely on my clit. The only issue I ever have is that it sometimes likes to pop up like a turkey timer, which can feel a bit odd but doesn't hurt. It's not that it's ever bothered me per say, but I do wonder if I'm missing out on sensation because it doesn't go through the apex and if it would be less inclined to pop up if it did. But I worry about rejection since there's an established fistula from the current piercing so close to where the new one would go. I mean really established; at one point a few years ago, I didn't wear jewelry in it for over a year, yet it never shrunk down past a 16 (was pierced at 14g). So I don't think it will ever close up on me. I also worry a little about the aesthetic of having a hole from the old piercing in front of a new one. Call me vain, but I don't want to ruin the look of things as I happen to be rather a fan of my vulva. Would I likely be running into any problems if I opted for a redo? Am I even really missing out on much since the ball sits where it's supposed to? I don't know if it's worth the effort to try for perfect placement or if I'm splitting hairs with this. What's more important for the sensation, the placement of the bottom ball or the placement through the apex? Thank you so much for your time, A.

This book has saved my life as an amateur piercer. There was so much that I thought I knew, and I realized when I read the book that I've been almost completely in the dark during my whole piercing career. The Piercing Bible has been so enlightening, I am grateful for your wisdom and extensive knowledge, Elayne. Thanks so much!

Argh! I received yet another message from a woman who went in requesting a vertical clitoral hood (VCH) piercing and ended up getting her hood pierced to her clitoral glans pierced due to visiting an unqualified, untrained piercer. She wrote:

I recently got a VCH piercing but I think its not placed right. As you can see the piercing does not come through the hood, the lower ball is too far down. When i got the piercing it was very painful and a lot of blood came out.

My reply:I'm sure it was very painful, because that is NOT a hood piercing: YOU HAVE HAD YOUR CLITORIS PIERCED!

Your hood is actually pierced to your clitoris. You're going to need to take that out but you should talk to the owner of the business and get your money back.

Where did you get this done?

She wrote again:

I had thought it was pierced through that from the pain i went through.

I will try and remove it myself as i don't want to go back to the place that did it. I got it done in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland.

I was going to go to a piercing shop in Belfast tomorrow to see if they would remove it for me, as I don't want to make it worse.